I personally think that creating the puzzles is much more impressive. You have to go from infinite possibilities to something that is creative and interesting to solve. The most impressive designs seem like magic to me. Todd Etter, who designed the Xbox puzzle, deserves the credit for designing this puzzle. I stupidly forgot to mention him in the video!
This is one of the first puzzle videos I've watched where I thought, "O hey, I maybe could have figured this one out"! Watching your videos has helped me figure out how puzzles are designed and what mindset I have to be in to work toward a solution. I want to try working on some puzzles myself in the near future. Keep up the great videos!
I always find those puzzle hunt puzzles impressive. I would never have think of the cherry word, even in my mother tong. Thank you for the video, I hope you'll get well soon!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! One thing that helps with these competitions is that you can often enter partial answers. So, for example, entering CHERRY would have the puzzle answer software tell you that it's a correct partial answer. You also don't need all the words to get the answer, just enough to guess RITUAL!
You know what FLEB, I don't normally comment on videos but you always intro yourself in such an upbeat manner! I love it, keep up these engaging and interesting videos.
You shouldn't! This was from a puzzle competition that you had to apply for as a team, and they only accepted 40 teams! People in general are pretty unfamiliar with the puzzlehunt style, so they have less experience with what's expected from the puzzle. I'm hoping that I can upload a talk I gave recently to next year's MIT Mystery Hunt writers on puzzle construction, so I can explain more about what this type of puzzle is like.
The difficulty was definitely up there! There are events coming up which feature easier puzzles, though. There's actually a monthly event which caters to people getting into puzzlehunts, which is Puzzled Pint. The idea is that you go to a bar and solve a short puzzlehunt, which is a good introduction to the various techniques. Also, next month, there's an event called DASH which has a beginner or advanced track, and is sort of an intermediate hunt.
Maybe you can try doing more of the beginner one, FLEB? I guess the one that intrigues you is fine for me, so I can get a little bit of hang of the puzzlehunt, because this one's pretty hard >< Nevertheless, excellent video as always!
Once more, thanks for the response. Would you say there is an easy way to find out what difficulty level a new puzzle enthusiast should begin at? I want to get in to puzzles but I don't know where to start, I figured the machined puzzles are a good place to start but I'm on a bit of a budget.
I honestly hate puzzles to death but absolutely love watching you solve these. The first video I saw from yours was The Lotus Box and I've fallen in love with how you think while doing these puzzles. Keep it up, I'll keep watching!!
That's also a possibility, but given that all the other crossword clue answers were one word, you could make an educated guess that is was "Blossom" and not "The Big Bang Theory".
i think this is my favourite puzzle you've made a video on. it's so cleverly made and it's clear that so much thought went into it. and it's equally as impressive that you managed to solve it. keep doing what you do, you're very good at it :)
That was a really good puzzle! They really pack a lot of clues in there. I would have thought just building it would give the answer, but then there are a lot more steps to get to the word.
I think itd be cool if you recorded yourself in a famine game or whatever you said that thing was where you go from place to place solving puzzles. Like itd be like you taking us with you through the game. It think itd make a sick video(s). I enjoy your videos keep it up FLEB
I always see big youtubers saying that when they were smaller they replied to everyone, but I never really got to see that. Now that I've found a smaller channel I really enjoy, I love to see you replying and conversing with everyone here! I love your videos, and you're super smart to be able to solve these things. I hope some day I get to see you get to the point where there are simply too many people to get to, but I know you'll still be replying.
I love this! You have to travel, search, solve some puzzles and then you can travel some more! This is amazing. Here in Czech republic we have a geocashing (that kinda went old by the time) and some kids games like "visit all castles and chateaus and you get a teddy" but nothing like this! And I want to search for the hidden clues! :D
Wow, great effort on solving this. This puzzle reminds me a bit of the times i used to solve Geocaching puzzles with a couple of friends, and i can tell you, there are some really hard puzzles out there. We solved (and found) around 1000 Geocaching puzzles before i turned to collecting hardcopies ;-). Nice video again, thanks!
Are there any puzzles that have big red herrings in them that you have done? Where the solver is often tricked into thinking that something is important but not? For example, if in this puzzle the numbers shaped by the logs were instead completely unimportant, but the solver thinks they are and instead is led on a wild goose chase of sorts
That used to be more of the case, but recent (last 10 years) of puzzle design has held that up as bad design. Most puzzles today are designed to not have red herrings. As a result, a number of puzzlehunt puzzles have gotten easier, but that's not a bad thing! The quality has gone way, way up!
Getting good at puzzle solving is really just solving a lot of puzzles, and creating them as well. Solving puzzles will give you a good sense of what's out there, while creating puzzles gives you a good sense of the constraints that puzzle authors face.
I don't remember! I was trying to look up the data, but I couldn't find it. I think it was 45 min-1 hour, with a team of 4 people, but that's just a random guess.
Puzzle Suggestion! Do the Enigma Ring Puzzle. I just started collecting puzzles, and this was one of the first I solved. The final move of the solution was beautiful. It was the first moment I was awed by a puzzle.
I really like Hanayama puzzles, but one thing I try to do is highlight the entire puzzle world, including the parts people don't know about, or can't access! I've covered quite a few of Hanayama's puzzles already!
when it's past midnight and u get fascinated af by these puzzles.. It's nice to keep thinking while you go through the steps and sometimes actually getting things right or guessing ahead of the video. a small triumph 😅 ( even this particular one was nothing for me, since English isn't my first language I feel like I have a clear disadvantage here lmaoo)
FLEB not on this one tbh. it was too hard for me bec English is a foreign language to me and it's hard for me to make the same associations or just keep up with the full vocabulary (the words in the puzzle). but I came here through the Eureka puzzle (it was recommendedfor me) and I really liked that one. it was more logical so I could solve that one in the head while you did your explaining beforehand 😅 ( obviously it's not half as hard as this one, but as I said, a small triumph) keep up with the videos! it's so exciting bec of the cleverness behind it !
Another great video FLEB. I think it would be great if you gave us a ballpark on how long it would you to solve your puzzle (in addition to the videos)
I really wanna join those puzzle hunt thingies but dam, it's either I'll go far away for that or wait 'til some organization does that contest here. At least I could still solve some puzzles online as a /temporary/ solution for that
That puzzle was really complex. You must be really creative - in solving - to have that solved in time. I mean how much tim edid you had to find the solution to get to the next location?
I've always been interested in brain teasers, and by association, puzzles. But I find puzzles somewhat terrifying, with a mysterious object in my hands created by someone who masterminded it all, knowing something I don't, and I'd feel that if I couldn't solve it, I'd probably go mad with irrational fear. When I found one of your videos for the first time, the introduction of the puzzle made me rather anxious, but you always solve them in the end, and for some reason, that makes me feel really safe. I subscribed because of that. I think my heart would give in if you posted a puzzle without a solution. Thank you for your work! P.S. I'm interested if you have any puzzles you made yourself, and if you have any videos of them? Thanks u-u
Thank you very much for your kind words! I don't usually stream my own puzzles, as I like to highlight other people's work, but there are a number of puzzle competitions that have used my work, which is publicly available. (And don't worry, the solutions are posted!) If you go to www.baphl.org/15, I wrote "Countless Crossword Clues", "Spectacular Space Sojourn", "Dastardly Dungeons", "Time Cube", and "Time For You To Get A Watch".
Shouldn't "confederate color" be 'grey'? That's the color generally associated with the confederacy, and it is far more closely related to 'ash' than 'red'.
A couple hundred? I've never counted. Also, with puzzles like these, they're shared with everyone on the team, so they're not really part of my collection, more like part of my puzzle team's collection.
The X-box used to be my fav till before this one, love it when a puzzle has alot of steps like that. Whats the longest puzzle you've done so far Fleb? (in number of steps required rather than time spent)
This event was a team of four. Even with a large van, it can feel cramped to essentially live out of it for 48 hours! My Mystery Hunt team this year was 100+ people, though!
I do! I don't highlight my own work in general because I'm constantly blown away by what other people do! I wrote a bunch of puzzlehunt puzzles for BAPHL 15, here's one of them: www.baphl.org/15/static/puzzles/puzzle_1-6.pdf
There are, so when solving this for the first time, you might get most of the other clues, and then figure out that TOMATO is what you need from marinara. On my sheet while resolving this puzzle, I thought it would either be TOMATO or ONION. Once I got BOMB, I figured out it that CHERRY was the theme and that TOMATO fit. SHOES on the GUM category also took me a long time. And I thought MUSTACHE (must...ash?) fit the ASH category until I thought of CIGAR
I'm glad you liked it! Also, your thumbnail is really unique. I remembered you commenting on a couple other videos because of it! What in the world is the drawing?
Do you know if something like that Puzzle Hunt exists in Germany? I may not be good at solving puzzles, but i would really love to take part in itand at least try!
I'm not sure! They're becoming a lot more popular in general. This one in particular was a one-time US event, but I imagine that people are starting to put them on in other countries! Usually I check out the upcoming events at www.puzzlehuntcalendar.com . I don't know off the top of my head if they post international events, though.
I'm not sure if this was asked, but what was the point of the numbers in each layer? you did not have to put them in any order or anything, was that step necessary?
He addressed it at the end of the video. Each number represents the number of the letter we need to take away from that specific word. For Cherry it was 5 so we got "R"
